


Can You Fill the Silence?

by panchostokes (badwolfrun)



Series: Prompt Fics [77]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Angst, Defining the Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:15:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24235642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes
Summary: Nick and Greg define what they are.
Relationships: Greg Sanders/Nick Stokes
Series: Prompt Fics [77]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1540795
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Can You Fill the Silence?

**Author's Note:**

> prompt fic from an anon on tumblr: "we're not just friends. you know that."

"We’re not just friends. You know that.” 

Nick ignores Greg, his tongue circles up the only remaining liquid in the water bottle. Even though he had just chugged the entire bottle, his mouth still feels as barren as the desert they’re scoping out.

“What are we, then?” Nick finally croaks after he shoots a glance back, to ensure they’re not within earshot of the fellow investigators that are re-combing the threads behind them.

“What do you think we are?”

“What do you want us to be?” 

“I want us to be more...Do you?”

Nick crumbles the plastic in his hand, his eyes scanning the grains of sand for an answer that he doesn’t have.

“I...I just thought after the hospital, the...things you said...” Greg muttered as his own eyes fell back to the ground, to the earth that Nick felt his feet sinking into with every step.

“I meant it.” 

“Then why is this so hard?”

“Cause I...you don’t...I’m not...complete, Greg. There’s part of me that’s missing, and I ain’t ever getting it back.”

“Bullshit. We all pulled you out of that box.”

“Not all of me. Not the part that...that could...luh--”

The word hangs in the air as Nick has to clear his throat, re-hinge the floaty throb that dares to shake water out of his body via the corners of his eyes.

Greg throws out his arm across Nick’s chest, stopping them in their tracks. He points to the ground and they crouch down in the guise of investigating as the rest of the team had caught up to them, Greg lowers his voice to a husky whisper that somehow screams in Nick’s ears--

“What was that kiss in the hospital then?”

Nick doesn’t respond, he rises up and starts walking, treading through the soil with increasing pace, away from his problems. Away from Greg.

“Nick? Nick, wait!” 

He’s so focused on the grains that rise and fall with each footfall that he doesn’t pay attention to what’s in front of him; a pit that he notices too little, too late. He yelps out as his ankle twists his body, he falls on his back and onto something ragged...and sharp. An intense inhale escapes his body as he immediately grabs to the edges of the pit, but he’s unable to sit up on his own. He shoots a glance behind him, and the message is clear when he sees a skeleton beneath his body, the crinkle of his discarded bottle tricking his mind to think that he’s going to break down and decay as easily this discarded corpse, that he’s eternally suffered to this underground fate, that he’s going to run out of air and _die here--_

“Greg! Help!” he shouts out in a cracked cry, a hand shooting up past the height of the hole, immediately grabbed by the sandman himself. Nick latches one hand onto Greg’s extended forearm, the other balling up one sleeve of Greg’s vest as he’s pulled up and out of the hole.

“T-thanks,” he mutters as he hides his sweat-coated face in the collar of his shirt, wiping away the terror.

“Won’t mention it,” Greg tells him. He puts a hand behind Nick’s head, resting on the back of the ballcap that shields his eyes. Nick’s hands move up, gripping Greg’s shoulders before one slides behind his back, pulls him into Nick’s chest. 

“Everything,” Nick’s muffled voice cries into the crook of Greg’s shoulder.

“What’s that?”

“That kiss in the hospital. It was...everything to me. And so are you.”

Nick dares to steal a soft kiss on Greg’s neck, before they part and get back to work processing the remains in the hole that separates them, but brings them together.


End file.
